


Spring Cleaning

by FreeTheSoul



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6904390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeTheSoul/pseuds/FreeTheSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ene could only hope that the next time Shintaro went around downloading things that he didn't end up corrupting his entire system, but as the saying goes, history is always doomed to repeat itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Cleaning

**Author's Note:**

> just a short shintaro and ene fic because i love them

“Y’know, Master, torrenting porn off of sketchy websites and ending up with a virus shouldn’t _really_ be surprising.” Ene nodded sagely at her own words, ignoring Shintaro as he glowered at her through his tears. “I mean, I’m actually surprised you lasted this long _before_ you ended up with one.”

He huffed loudly, clicking through another slew of pointless error messages that were trying to sell him some garbage he didn’t need.

“ _Yes,_ I _know_ , Ene,” he eventually cut back sharply, sniveling and wiping his nose with the back of his arm. “But you can help, _can’t_ you? Before it destroys all my files?”

She snorted, “What, your precious leg folder? Oh, what a _loss,_ Master, if _that_ got corrupted.” Ene rolled her eyes at him, and Shintaro’s finger tapped harder against his mouse in annoyance.

“Th-that took me _years_ to collect, Ene! Have pity, please!” He cleared his throat, greasy hair falling into his face that he didn’t bother brushing back. “A-anyways, that’s not what matters here. _Please_ , Ene, come on, I’ll do _anything!”_

She arched an eyebrow in surprise, but promptly turned her back to him.

“...What are you doing?” He prodded her with his mouse, but she ignored him and raised her hands together in prayer.

“Giving my last farewells, duh. My end is nigh… O, mighty gods, may my master repent for his sins…” she started rambling, and behind her she heard Shintaro sigh and collapse back into his chair. Sneaking a glance at him, it came with absolutely no surprise that he was scrambling through his phone for some kind of solution.

Her time to shine, she supposed. If he was going to act _that_ desperate, a little prank wouldn’t hurt.

It was a trick she’d discovered a while back, and she’d bided her time in wait for the perfect opportunity. It was mean, but hey, there was surprisingly little for entertainment when you were a computer program.

She made the monitor bluescreen.

In reality, the computer still worked relatively fine, but it was nearly impossible to tell. A high metallic shriek for effect, and it was perfect. The only downside was that she couldn’t see outside the screen anymore, but at least she could still hear Shintaro as he panicked.

“Uh? E-Ene? W-w-wait, Ene, come back! Plea--”

The screen cut to black, and his words were replaced by a dull, low static. It weighed on her ears, and the lonely, glitching interior of Shintaro’s system made her feel laggy and numb. At the very least, she found solace in his unquestioned meltdown at the prospect of losing his entire computer.

Ene sighed, and looked out across the field of pixelated cyberspace. Truthfully, she hated being alone in it-- and with that in mind, she set out on cleaning it of everything foreign so that _she_ didn’t end up getting eaten up along with everything else.

Hours later, the computer’s fan _whirred_ quietly back into action, and Ene yawned while she waited for the system to reboot. At least she could see again, she supposed, even if everything was tinted black and made it even _harder_ to identify anything through the room's horrible musk. All she could really see was the alarm clock that blinked “10:32” at her in white lettering.

Six hours was a long time to be gone, and she hoped Shintaro had managed to survive through it, somehow. He should be grateful she took all her time and effort to help restore his computer and keep all his files no matter _how_ long it took her but, then again, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t gone and wasted a few hours whenever she got bored of de-bugging.

The screen finally flickered back, and Ene made the tiniest _ahem_ as she cranked the speaker volume to max.

“I’m BA~ACK! Did you miss m--” She cut her own enthusiastic fistpump off, spare neon-toned pixels flitting out of existence as she let herself float back down through cyberspace. “Um. Master?”

He was listless on the bed for a minute, and fear coursed through her. Six hours really _was_ a long time to leave him alone, she realized quickly. It wasn’t until he stirred and pulled himself off of his pillow that her fabricated heart restarted, and she watched him roll over slowly to blink blearily at her. It was hard to tell from that far away, but Ene could see the streaks of tears and snot still on his face despite his apparent nap. It was disgusting, and a snide remark was already waiting on her lips by the time he finally seemed to realize what had happened. She tried, at least, to insult him, but the sheer speed with which he slipped off his bed and practically _bounded_ \- a word she was sure to reuse when she recounted the story - towards her made the words die on her lips.

Shintaro wailed at her when he got close enough, wrapping his arms around the monitor in what she assumed was some kind of hug. The display teetered as he smothered it against his chest, and she couldn’t help but fear for a moment that he was about to break his computer all over again.

“Er, there… there, Master. What’s gotten _into_ you? What, did you really miss your computer _that_ much?” She huffed, bouncing back from his unexpected outburst as best as she could. “Jeez, I shouldn’t have even bothered. Then again, the look on your face just now was _priceless~!”_

"U-uh... sure." Shintaro drew back quickly and with clear shame, while Ene wondered what a hug from him would feel like if she still had a body. Sweaty, probably. Maybe, in the end, the ultimate blessing was _not_ having to feel that.

Slowly, he sat down, and she returned to sorting all his folders back to where they used to be on his desktop. The minutes ticked by in silence, and Ene wondered whether he was waiting for something before he planned on moving. What, was he going to get angry that she hadn’t returned every last pixel to normal? Maybe about the spring cleaning, even if all she’d done was remove a few broken files and shuffle around some old photos she didn’t figure it was good for him to dwell on. And he was going to get _mad?_ Pah! If anything, he should start calling _her_ ‘Master’.

Then again, he was probably too into that for her tastes.

She figured she should calm down, because really, he hadn’t even _said_ anything yet, but she swore, if the next words out of his soda-rotted mouth were...

“...Thanks, Ene.”

The mutter caught her by surprise, and she swung around to look at Shintaro. He was avoiding looking at her - and Ene could tell this was intentional, by the way he was fiddling with his headphone cord - but she could still see the corner of an embarrassed smile.

“Aw, for what?” Her prior anger dissipated as she flipped herself over upside-down on the screen, watching him gently despite the tease in her tone. “I mean, I know your, y’know, _locked folders_ and awful poems are important to you or whatever, but you don’t have to get all… _emotional_ over it. I live here too, Master.”

“Um, y-yeah, but, thanks for…” his breath hitched, and it was almost hard to hear what he ended with. “Thanks for… coming back, y-y’know?”

Ene paused, a minute. She bit back the urge to remind him that she _couldn’t_ leave, really, and that she would’ve been long gone if she hadn’t been installed on his hunk-of-junk system and bound to it. For all she’d watched the kid in front of her go through, she figured she owed him a tender moment, too, sometimes.

“...Aww, isn’t that cute~ Were you _really_ worried about little old icky-bitty teeny-weeny _me,_ Master?” She snickered at him, making the most obnoxious baby voice she could manage under the laugh that creeped at her cheeks and pulled at her lips. ‘Tender moment’? Yeah, right, she scoffed to herself.

He finally looked up at her, hissing under his breath. “Not anymore,” he grumbled and, after a lingering moment, went back to the usual routine of ignoring her while he checked through all his folders.

Shintaro really was, she mused, a kid. Not even 18 yet, for god’s sake - she supposed he’d forgotten this in light of looking at less-than-savory sites, but she also supposed he’d forgotten about his birthday next month. Maybe she’d do something special for him, or whatever.

He was too young to deserve all that-- if her body was still around she’d be about 19, she was pretty sure - it was getting harder to remember things like that - but he was just a scared kid cooped up in his room with nobody except a lousy computer program to keep him company. Computer programs couldn’t help someone calm down or get to sleep after they cried and screamed for two, or four, or seven hours; all she could do was try and stave it off, but even that was all Shintaro had anymore. The real weight of his words finally hit her, and staring at his still-puffy eyes made her own start to sting.

She hesitated, “Master?”

He pretended to ignore her interruption, but the way his finger hesitated on his mouse wheel betrayed him.

“You really don’t have to worry about me leaving, y’know,” she continued, and wondered if that was the first time he’d ever heard _that_ promise from someone who was going to keep it. “I can’t leave someone as pathetic as you alone, now can I? Who _knows_ what you’ll get up to, huh?”

She smiled genuinely despite the bite of her words, and the sheepish look he gave her seemed to acknowledge it.

“...Yeah, thanks.”

Ene watched him return to his usual routines, quiet for once. She remembered a boy she used to know a long time ago, who’d been hopeless and miserable and, by all accounts, not at all like the Shintaro she knew.

Looking at him now, she realized he’d come a lot farther than she gave him credit for and, just maybe, that the feeling in her chest was pride.


End file.
